Vinayak
Damodar (“Veer”) Savarkar can, with some justice, be described
as the inspirational force behind the resurgence of militant Hinduism
in contemporary India. His fame has been on the ascendancy since the Hindu
right captured power in India less than a decade ago, and lately he has
been lionized in the film “Veer Savarkar” by the filmmaker
Sudhir Phadke, a fellow Maharashtrian. In May 2002, L. K. Advani spoke
glowingly of Savarkar and Hedgewar, the founder of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak
Sangh [RSS], as men who had “kindled fierce nationalistic spirit
that contributed to India’s liberation.” Savarkar’s
advocates view him as a luminous visionary, a supreme patriot who sacrificed
much for the defense of Mother India, a great revolutionary and even social
reformer; his opponents, who generally do not question his patriotism,
nevertheless point to his political conservatism, his support of reactionary
movements, and his advocacy of a communal-based politics verging on fascism.

Savarkar was born in Bhagur village in Nasik district
of present-day Maharashtra on 28 May 1883 into a Chitpavan Brahmin family.
His early exposure to the political activities of the Maharashtrian elite
who were opposed to British rule may have come at the hands of his elder
brother, Ganesh [Babarao], who is said to have been greatly inspired by
the actions of Lokmanya Tilak, the Chapekar Brothers, and other revolutionaries.
The Savarkar brothers were active in the Mitra Mela, a secret society
formed with the aim of liberating, through the use of armed force, India
from British rule. Veer Savarkar attended Fergusson College in Pune: his
biographer, Dhananjay Keer, notes that Savarkar gathered around him a
group of students who debated European political texts, discussed revolution,
and championed swadeshi [self-reliance]. In 1906, Savarkar left for London
to get credentialed in law; his passage was paid for by Shyam Krishnavarma,
an Indian patriot settled in London who used his journal, The Indian Sociologist,
to make a case for Indian independence. The journal was advocating violent
revolution by 1909; but before then, in 1907, Savarkar had published a
Marathi translation of Mazzini’s autobiography which did very well.
By early 1909, according to the senior intelligence officer James Campbell
Ker, author of Political Trouble in India 1907-1917 [1917, reprinted 1973
by Oriental Publishers, Delhi], Savarkar had taken charge of India House,
the London headquarters of those Indians who claimed revolutionary credentials
(p. 177). That year, on July 1, Madan Lal Dhingra assassinated Sir William
Curzon-Wyllie at the Imperial Institute. This assassination, less than
a month after Ganesh Savarkar was convicted on the charge of sedition
and sentenced to transportation for life, is said to have been instigated
by Savarkar’s orders; yet Savarkar himself never wielded any arms.
His critics, quite rightly, describe this cowardice as typical of Savarkar’s
conduct; and it is striking, of course, that nearly 40 years later Savarkar
was again thought to have encouraged and instigated Nathuram Godse to
murder Mahatma Gandhi, without himself having taken up arms. It is more
than likely that Savarkar became a master at manipulating those who looked
up to him, and sought to conduct his violent activities without explicitly
implicating himself in gruesome deeds of murder.

A steady stream of publications emerged from Savarkar’s
pen over a course of five decades, and his first substantial work, the
Indian War of Independence, appeared in 1908, or fifty years after the
rebellion of 1857-58 had been crushed. Though in this work Savarkar argued
that Hindus and Muslims had stood together in resistance to the British,
in later works he showed himself much less enamored of Hindu-Muslim unity,
and for most of his adult life he would, in fact, become known for his
advocacy of the rights of Hindus. Hindu Pad-Padashahi [1925], a treatise
on Hindu Kingship, or more particularly on the glories of India under
Maratha rule, showed as well the impact of political events on Savarkar’s
thinking: both the Khilafat movement, as well as the Moplah Rebellion,
doubtless played a part in turning Savarkar against Muslims. However,
his signature piece, in this respect, was a “treatise” he
penned in 1922, “Essentials of Hindutva”, a more elaborate
version of which appeared in 1928 as Hindutva: Who is a Hindu? (Nagpur,
1928). Savarkar vigorously set forth the idea that Hindus constituted
a nation, bound together by common blood, and that Hindus were united
“by the tie of a common heritage we pay to our great civilization
-- our Hindu culture”. Savarkar eschewed the word “Hinduism”;
to him, Hindutva represented the essence of the Hindu way of life. As
he wrote, “If there be any word of alien growth it is this word
Hinduism and so we should not allow our thoughts to get confused by this
new fangled term.” The Hindus’ devotion to their motherland
was supreme; indeed, whosoever was devoted to Hindustan, and considered
it his or her holy land (punyabhoomi), was a Hindu.

The most elaborate legend, vigorously promoted
by Savarkar’s friends and admirers, has developed around his supposed
bravery. In 1910, as Savarkar was being taken to India after a warrant
had been issued for his arrest on charges of sedition and treason, he
escaped as his ship docked at Marseilles. Upon being recaptured, Savarkar
challenged the legality of his arrest in France, but the international
court at Hague, though it took the view that an illegality had been committed
when Savarkar was handed over to the British police, nonetheless ruled
against Savarkar. Savarkar was, at his trial in Bombay, sentenced to imprisonment
for life, and transported to the Andamans. In 1922, he was sent back to
India, but confined to Ratnagiri District until 1937. Yet, to put it mildly,
there are serious reasons to doubt whether Savarkar was deserving of the
epithet of “Veer” [brave] that was bestowed on him. The indisputable
fact remains that throughout his political life, Savarkar showed himself
perfectly capable of not merely negotiating with the British, but serving
as an active collaborator. When confined to jail in the Andamans, Savarkar
negotiated with the British to have himself set free. Moreover, when Congress
refused to form a government in the Central Provinces and Bengal, the
Hindu Mahasabha under Savarkar’s guidance opted to collaborate with
the British. He thought it a God-given opportunity for the Mahasabha to
flex its muscles while the Congress was in hibernation. Similarly, though
the Congress declared itself opposed to offering the British any assistance
during World War II, Savarkar was keen that Hindus should acquire experience
in the use of firearms. Savarkar saw in World War II an opportunity for
Hindus, who had been emasculated (in Savarkar’s view) by centuries
of oppression under Muslim and British rule, and rendered incapable of
even elementary knowledge in the discharge of firearms by virtue of legislation
that forbid ownership of guns among Indians. to become versed in fighting
strategies. Not only did the Hindu Mahasabha, whose presidency Savarkar
assumed in 1937 upon the rescission of the order which confined him to
Ratnagiri District, not oppose the British position in World War II, but
the Mahasabha played no role in the Quit India movement and indeed even
assisted the British in its suppression.

In the last analysis, Savarkar appears as an extraordinary embodiment
of utter mediocrity. In the large corpus of his writings, there is barely
anything to suggest a creative mind at work, and one searches in vain
for any original idea. Savarkar imbibed the worst of Western political
and social traditions, and his warped ideas about race superiority, the
survival of the fittest, and the nation as a “blood entity”,
so to speak, were derived from the most objectionable strands of Western
thinking. In his avid desire to militarize the Hindus, he showed himself
hostage to crude notions of realpolitik. He perfected the art of assassination
and political intrigue by remote control, and his true disciple in this
respect is Bal Thackeray. It is no surprise that he should appeal to the
leadership of the present generation of Hindu extremists, who are similarly
bereft of intellectual ideas, moral sentiments, and the barest standards
of truth in public life, and whose idea of bravery entails murderous onslaught
upon religious minorities. If Savarkar is at all to be remembered, let
it not be forgotten that as Nathuram Godse plotted to take Mahatma Gandhi’s
life, Savarkar blessed him and wished him success in his God-given task.